When designing lightweight structures, various strength, fatigue and damage tolerance requirements should be satisfied to suit the particular application. Particular importance is given to the damage-tolerant properties of lightweight structures in the field of aircraft construction in particular. It is known practice to produce lightweight structural panels by connecting stiffening profiles to a skin plate forming an outer skin.
It is known practice to provide stiffening elements in the case of lightweight structural panels, for instance on those which form the outer skin of an aircraft. These may, for example, extend in the manner of stringers in the longitudinal direction of the aircraft fuselage and have, for example, an inverted L-shaped cross section. It is conventional for such stiffening elements to be produced separately from the outer skin and then to be connected to the outer skin. At the foot of the stiffening element may be provided a leg which serves for fastening to the outer skin. The fastening can be achieved by riveting or adhesive bonding or by a combination thereof. Alternatively, the stiffening element can be welded at its foot end to the outer skin.
DE 196 39 667 and DE 198 44 035 disclose structural components in a welded skin/stringer construction. Profiles which can take the form of stringers or frames are welded by laser beam welding to large-sized skin sheets. DE 199 24 909 discloses the provision of a thickened formation in the foot region of a stiffening member provided on an outer skin so as to avoid or delay crack formations. The use of additional reinforcements on stiffening profiles is also disclosed in DE 101 63 848 and DE 100 31 510.
EP 1 439 121 A1 describes a lightweight structural component for aircraft in particular. The lightweight structural component is composed of at least one skin sheet and of stiffening elements arranged longitudinally or transversely, or longitudinally and transversely, thereon, these stiffening elements each being cohesively connected, either completely or at least partially, to the skin sheet by way of their foot, in which arrangement the web of the stiffening element is composed of two legs on its side facing the skin sheet and these legs are both cohesively connected to the skin sheet by means of two separate joint zones.
It is an object of the invention to provide a lightweight structural panel which combines low weight with high strength. In particular, the lightweight structural panel should be damage-tolerant and insensitive to crack formation as far as possible.